The Subjective Experience of Uncertainty, Justice and Risks in Times of Crisis: New and Old Forms of Inequalities in Work in Quebec

In addition to health issues, the pandemic crises has had short-term social impacts of an unprecedented magnitude on employment, education, future plans and family and social activities. These shocks have been amply documented but long-term repercussions on subjectivity are much less well understood. This presentation will present results from a mixed methods project analysing the impacts of disruptions in work and employment due to the pandemic and discussing the nature and subjective experiences of uncertainty and longer-term consequences on workers’ pathways. It focuses on some of the most brutally affected occupations (nurses; cashiers; delivery people; high-tech and IT professionals; cultural workers; university students in employment). Data was built from seven focus groups (totalling 54 participants) conduced in Québec between 2020 and 2022.

Firstly, results reveal two dimensions which lastingly mark individual pathways foreseeable objective changes in workplace and activity (exit and retention, increase of worked hours, etc.), but also the singular conditions of these changes (e.g. an exit by dismissal vs. by resignation; continuity in the same job vs. a radical employment turning point, etc.), showing a complex continuum of uncertainty and perceptions of justice. Secondly, we observe that workers who remained in labour market during the crisis experienced specific difficulties and opportunities, highlighting stable tendencies towards the exacerbation of advantages and disadvantages regarding qualification and gender (career and income opportunities for the more qualified; violent workplace conditions for less qualified workers; intensification, emotional stress, burnout for female workers; etc.). Thirdly, the data shows that the perception of risks was unevenly distributed for people in employment, less related to physical health than to relational, financial, emotional, and mental health outcomes. In conclusion, beyond the objective changes in activity resulting from the pandemic, workers’ stories show the subjective experiences and impacts of these changes, revealing new and pre-existing inequalities at work.